Cruelly Condemned
by Adelaide E
Summary: Everybody had decided her fate for her. But what did the stolen goddess think of it all? A heated episode in the normally cold world of Hades.


Cruelly Condemned

By Adelaide

She fumed, while the mask of apathy stayed frozen on her beautiful face. It was the barest of complaints, laced so cleverly with some bland comment. He didn't expect her to catch it, or to change. All he wanted was someone to add color to this gray, murky world.

She was an accent, an afterthought of prettiness. Her teeth clenched.

Get some damn flowers.

So she'd do something about it. For the first time since she arrived, maybe for the first time in her life, she'd have something to say. And she didn't care if it angered him, or startled her family. Their disapproving glares couldn't penetrate through the ground. They couldn't penetrate the miserable mask.

Maybe her dress rustled when she swept from her—their chamber. She didn't know, or care. There were hardly any sounds here any way. But if the silence was disturbed as she approached her husband, he didn't show it. He simply sat there, waiting.

For her. As if he were unafraid. Her shoulders squared defiantly. She'd give him a reason to be afraid.

Then she spoke. Later, she wouldn't remember what, but it was something venomous, for sure. Acidic enough for him to actually look up, rise, and stare at her angrily. Then the next few minutes, she'd remember perfectly.

"It's not my fault you're unhappy," he said, menacingly. "You do so on purpose, moping as if there was nothing I could offer you."

"There's no question about it," she retorted. "There is _nothing_ you could offer me that I'd want. Nothing."

And when he smiled incredulously, her heart swelled with the desire for her father to burn him to a crisp. But, being a god, that was unfortunately impossible. 

"Nothing?" he repeated, eyes wide. "All the riches of Rhea surrounds you. Great heroes sit idly, awaiting your conversation."

"Darkness surrounds me," she hissed, eyes blazing. "And clever men, innocent women undergo torture before my very eyes."

"Clever? Innocent? Their fate had been ordained by us—"

"By you," she corrected passionately. Disgust was heavy in her voice. "By the mighty gods. Do you think that, because judgment was passed on Olympus, it's _fair_? It's _just_? Look what happened to _me_!"

"Of course, terrible fate," he agreed caustically. "Queen of a vast world, I pity you."

She hated him. She had never hated anybody so much that it hurt. The people down here thought they had it rough. Carrying porous vases, just a trickle of pain. Endless hunger and thirst, just a pinprick. Rolling a stupid rock up a hill looked like heaven compared to what she had to deal with. Prometheus had it lucky. And she couldn't even die to get away from him. She couldn't even die. "You should. And I pity you for being so blind."  


He shook his head, as if it would clear all the problems away. He stepped away from her, but his gaze lingered on her face, and then traveled the length of her body. She shuddered involuntarily, remembering the sickening touches her husband had taken liberty of. The stare that he had now was so wrong. He shouldn't have the right to be so familiar, to know so much of her body. It wasn't right.

"I'm blind? You are the stony queen who sees nothing around her. What happened to the happy girl I married?" It was the complaint he said smoothly the other night. She wasn't happy any more.

And she stared at him, utterly appalled. They never referred to their marriage, or the means of it. By his rule, and she only abided because she was gloomily indifferent. Her face hardened, the beauty of it disappearing as white hot anger bubbled in her. Fine. He opened the flood gates, not her. He asked for it.

"The happy girl that you _stole_. The happy girl that you _raped_. The happy girl that you _killed_."

If the gods could see this now. Lord of the Underworld, gesturing frantically with disbelieving emotions. She was so happy to see pain flicker on his face. So inexplicably happy. They both knew there was truth to her words, and soon he would be torn away from that blissful blindness. She wanted to make him see how much he hurt her. Her voice sliced cruelly through his ranting.

"Did it ever occur to you why I was so happy up there? My mother. My friends. Sunlight. Flowers. That's what made me the happy girl you ruined."

"I gave you my entire world!" he roared, so terribly the mass cavern trembled. All, even those whose threads had not been cut, felt Mother Earth shudder. But only two knew the cause.

"You replaced my warmth and love with blackness and ice. I'm not happy here because there's nothing to be happy about. I can't be the sweet child you violated. She's dead."

She giggled, shockingly malicious, when he flinched. Good. "And you pride yourself of not being like them. Not meddling in innocents affairs. Not bothering mortals. Just the immortals, right?" He dared to look away. No, no, she wasn't letting him get away with that. She marched to him, so that he could meet her burning eyes, and clearly hear the lacerating words.

"You should have picked a mortal. At least she could have died. At least she could have been passed on to another vessel, maybe. Somehow gotten away from you."

"So what do you want me to do?" he ground out. He was beyond humiliated; his wrong verbally corrected by his wife, in such a way. "Let you go?" He winced at the words, not only for the possibility, but for the meaning. It meant he was just her jailer, little more than a common thief.

Her laugh was too loud, startling and half wild. "Still so stupid."

"Why?" he thundered, eyes flashing. And she didn't want to look into them, but the swirling gray orbs were not to be avoided. She wished she hadn't seen the pain, the anguish. They both knew he loved her, since he laid eyes on her. And he had never known how much she hated him. "You miss it all obviously. A few months isn't enough for you."

"You made it different," she said distinctly. "You changed things up there."

"That is your father's domain, not mine—"

"I don't see it." She gave a soft giggle again, this time more to herself. And sad. So sad he had to turn away again, because her breathtaking face was too heartbreaking. "I don't see the bright shades of yellow in my mother's work. I can't feel the sun any more. It's so cold down here…and I never escape it. Not even above." Her eyes raised to him. His face was blurred by the unbidden tears. "I go back for a few months, but I can never go back to the way things were."

She hugged herself angrily, for the iciness she had just described threatened to take hold of her. She had come here for a reason. "You made things different. You're the one who wanted me to be the Queen of these empty souls. I'm only complying. So don't ever complain about my behavior. Don't you dare comment on my lack of enthusiasm. It's warranted; it's justified. _I'm what you made me_."

Back straight as a laurel tree, eyes flashing brighter than lightning, she turned away. With easy grace the Muse of Dance would have envied, she silently glided out of the room. Her face held an expression of such sadness and hopelessness…one glance and Eros would have set down his arrows and retired. Love resulted in broken girls and shattered dreams.

Their chamber was just before her, but she turned away. It was theirs, together. His presence still hung in the air.

So instead she went to her throne. The cold, glittering chair welcomed her as she watched the deceased flow by. How desperately she wanted to go with them, but she was condemned. She was the queen.


End file.
